Cardinals ex-scouting director pleads guilty in hacking case

Chris Correa, who was the St. Louis Cardinals' scouting director until he was fired this past summer, pled guilty today to five counts of unauthorized access into the Houston Astros' computer system.  Sentencing is scheduled to occur on April 11 -- ironically, the date of the Cardinals' home opener.

The story linked above includes a PDF of the criminal complaint, which provides details as to what was accessed, including scouting reports and internal notes on trade talks.  Correa apparently accessed the database -- known as "Ground Control" -- using a former Cardinal staffer's username and password, and then, when security was increased and new default passwords were sent out, Correa apparently accessed Houston g.m. Jeff Luhnow's email account to get the password and continue accessing confidential information.

MLB issued the following statement:

The Astros had the following:

The Cardinals indicated that they are not commenting at this time.

Correa acknowledged accessing the database in court today in an effort to determine if the Astros had proprietary information that belonged to the Cardinals -- which Judge Lynn Hughes analogized to breaking into someone's home to see if they had broken into your home -- and alleged that he found proprietary information of the Cardinals, which the Astros denied in their statement above.

What remains to be seen is what action MLB takes against the Cardinals.  MLB could potentially fine the Cardinals, take away draft picks, or limit bonus pools, among other steps.